Ultranet vs AES50: Same Plug, Different Jobs

Look at the back of an SD16 and you’ll find AES50 ports and Ultranet ports, and they take the same cable. Plug a personal mixer into the wrong one and nothing breaks, and nothing plays either. Here is which does what.

The short answer

• AES50: the console-to-stage-box link. 48 channels each way, clock included. Two devices per cable.
• Ultranet: the console-to-personal-mixer feed. 16 channels, one direction, daisy-chained from mixer to mixer. Some ports also power the mixers.
• Rule: Ultranet feeds P16-M and other Ultranet mixers. AES50 feeds stage boxes and other consoles. Never the other way round.

AES50 in one paragraph

AES50 is an open standard for 48 bidirectional channels over one shielded Cat5e cable, with a fixed 62.5 microsecond latency and the word clock on the cable’s spare pairs. It is what joins an X32 Rack to an S16, or a Midas M32 to a DL32, and what chains one stage box to the next. The full picture is in what is AES50.

Ultranet in one paragraph

Ultranet is Behringer’s own format for carrying 16 channels of 24-bit audio from the console, or from a P16-I input module, to Powerplay personal mixers. It runs one way: the console sends sixteen stems, each musician mixes their own balance on a P16-M, and nothing comes back up the cable. Behringer quotes system latency under a millisecond. Mixers daisy-chain through their Ultranet In and Thru jacks, and a P16-D distributor turns one Ultranet feed into eight powered outputs, up to six distributors for 48 mixers.

Which Ultranet ports power the mixer

This is the part that catches people. An X32’s own Ultranet port and the S16’s Ultranet port carry audio but no power, so a P16-M on either needs its wall adapter. The SD16 has two Ultranet outputs that do supply power, as does the P16-D. If your plan has musicians on P16-Ms with no outlets nearby, the SD16 or a P16-D is doing more than passing audio. The stage box guide lists which box has which port.

Ultranet to Dante

There is no Ultranet-to-Dante converter, and you don’t need one. Ultranet is an output of the console. If the console has a Dante card, the same sixteen stems that feed the Ultranet port can be routed to Dante outputs instead, and a Dante-equipped personal mixer system takes it from there. For getting a Behringer console onto Dante at all, see AES50 to Dante and back.

Preamps

Neither protocol carries a preamp. Ultranet sends line-level stems that the console already mixed. AES50 carries the audio from the stage box’s preamps plus the control to set their gain. A P16-M has no mic input, only a headphone output and a line output, so it adds nothing to the input count of a rig. For input counting, see how many preamps your rig needs.

Sources

• Behringer Powerplay P16 system specification: 16 channels, In/Thru, power from P16-I or P16-D, latency, P16-D eight outputs
• AES50 (Wikipedia): channels, latency, clock
• Behringer SD16/SD8 quick start guide: powered Ultranet outputs